Jesse Claiborne “Black Jack” Nunley
July 4, 1853 – August 10, 1929
Final edition: November 10, 2026, 4:05 PM CST. Prepared with Frances Freeman. The supporting evidence, discrepancies, and open questions are in the companion Jesse Claiborne Nunley — Research Record (final edition, same date).
A Fourth of July Man
Jesse Claiborne Nunley was born on the Fourth of July, 1853. The date is carved on the stone he shares with his wife, Laura [1]. When he died, his age was recorded as seventy-six years, one month, and six days, which counts back to the same Fourth of July [18]. His family knew him as J. C., and he was remembered as “Black Jack” [2]. Long after he was gone, his children and grandchildren kept gathering on his birthday. The Fourth of July became the Nunley reunion, and the family kept it up for generations [2][3][4].
A Farm Near McMinnville
Jesse was born in Warren County, Tennessee, in the hill country at the foot of the Cumberland Plateau. His parents were Greenberry Tobias “Tobe” Nunley and Frances “Fannie” Stoner [2][5][25]. Tobe and Fannie were both Tennesseans. Fannie’s parents had come from North Carolina [24].
By the time Jesse arrived, the household was already full. In 1850 the census taker found Greenberry, thirty-five, and “Franky,” thirty-one, with six children, the youngest a baby boy of three months, William H. [22]. Ten years later, in August 1860, the family appeared on the census with the post office at McMinnville. Green Nunly was a farmer with land worth $300 and personal property worth $430: a small farm, but his own [23]. Jesse was eight. His brothers and sisters filled the rest of the page [23]:
- John, 22, already working as a laborer
- Elizabeth, 20
- Sarah, 18
- Amanda
- Mary, 14
- William, 11
- Norman, 6
- James, 4
- Beersheba, the baby, 1
Jesse grew up in a house of a dozen people, in the middle of a long line of children. By the summer of 1870 the older children had gone out on their own. Greenbury, as the census taker spelled it, was fifty-five and still farming in the county’s Seventh Civil District. Fanny was keeping house. At home were Mary, William, Jesse, now sixteen, Norman, Jonah, and young Beersheba [39]. The Nunleys had a wide circle of relatives in Warren and neighboring Grundy County [2].
The family name carried a long history. The Nunleys spelled it with a single n and no extra syllables, though clerks who heard it often wrote “Nunnelly” or “Nunnally” [1][6][7]. Census takers did worse, and their misspellings hid the family from searchers for more than a century [26][27][28]. Family tradition holds that when surnames first came into use in England, the family was associated with a nunnery. Surname scholars trace the name Nunley to Nunley Farm at Wroxall in Warwickshire. The name comes from Old English words meaning “nun” and “woodland.” Wroxall was home to the Benedictine Priory of St. Leonard, a house of nuns from the 1100s until Henry VIII closed the monasteries in 1536 [8][9].
A Young Man in Warren County
Tobe Nunley died during the 1870s. By June 1880, Fannie Nunley was a widow of sixty-one, keeping house in Warren County’s Seventh Civil District. Her sons W. H., twenty-eight, and Jesse, twenty-six, were farming with her. Both were still single. A grandson, eleven-year-old William, lived with them and went to school [24].
Family lived all around them. Just next door were J. B. Nunley and his wife, Margarett. A few doors away lived Jesse’s youngest sister, Beersheba, then twenty, with her husband, Andrew Jackson “Jack” Mayfield [24]. A few households farther on lived the family of Reuben Hobbs, a farmer, among them a daughter named Laura [24].
Laura
On February 5, 1884, Jesse married Laura Ann Hobbs in Warren County [6][10]. The marriage bond is dated January 28, 1884. The clerk wrote Jesse’s name as “Jesse Nunnelly” and the bride’s as “Laura A Hobbs.” The man who signed the bond with Jesse was his brother-in-law, A. J. Mayfield [6]. A justice of the peace, J. H. Biles, performed the ceremony [6][10]. Years later, the death records of two of their children would name their parents the same way: J. C. or Jess Nunley and Laura Hobbs [31][32].
Laura is remembered as a wonderful singer in the churches [2]. Her love of music stayed in the family: her children and grandchildren became singers, musicians, and ministers [2].
Their first children were born in Tennessee: Lucy; James Lafayette (“Jim”), in February 1886; Ada Ann, on January 28, 1888; and William Henry, on April 19, 1889, in Warren County [2][26][30][32].
The Shoot-out and the Road West
Those were hard years for the revenue men and the hill people alike. The federal government was pressing the mountain counties for its whiskey tax, and Deputy Collector James M. Davis was its best-known enforcer on the Cumberland Plateau [41]. A McMinnville newspaper clipping, which the family copied at the library there, reports that “Capt. Davis” arrested Jesse in Grundy County, where the paper called him “Black Jesse,” on a charge of illicit traffic in brandy and whisky. Another Jesse Nunnelly, Jesse Fultz, Albert Croutch, and James McClure were taken the same week. Jesse gave bond to appear before the United States Commissioner [40][2].
According to the family account Frances Freeman preserves, Jesse later took part in a shooting with federal officers in Tennessee [2]. Jesse told the story himself, and it has come down through the family. Soon after the shooting he left Tennessee for good, taking his whole family with him. Relatives stayed behind to sell his land [2].
He did not go into the unknown. His widowed mother, Fannie, and his sister Beersheba and her husband, Jack Mayfield, had already moved to northeast Texas, to the blackland farm country where Hunt and Fannin counties meet. They were settled there when Jesse fled Tennessee with Laura and the children and came to join them [2][11][13][35]. Jesse’s son Charles Haley was born there on July 10, 1891, at Bailey in Fannin County [2][12][30].
The Texas years brought grief. Beersheba died at Wolfe City on February 26, 1892, still a young woman [2][11]. Jesse’s mother, Fannie, died on January 12, 1893. She was buried in the Mount Carmel Cemetery near Wolfe City, far from the Tennessee hills where she had raised her children [2][11][13][35].
The family stayed on in Fannin County for the rest of the decade. Luther was born on November 26, 1894, and Cordie Ann on January 14, 1898, both in Texas [2][26][37]. In June 1900 the census taker found the family near Leonard, in Fannin County. Jess C. Nunley, born in July 1853, was working as a farm laborer and renting the house they lived in. Laura was keeping house with seven children to raise. Jim, at fourteen, was already working in the fields. Ada and Will were going to school, and the three youngest, Charlie, Luther, and little Cordie, were at home [26].
The Border Country
Some time after 1900, Jesse decided to take his family home to Tennessee. The family tells it this way. They had money enough for train tickets only as far as Logansport, Louisiana, on the Sabine River, about two hundred miles southeast. There they got off, planning to sharecrop through the summer and earn the rest of the fare. But some of the older children found sweethearts in the neighborhood and did not want to leave. The family put off going, then put it off again. In the end they never went back. The border country between Panola County, Texas, and De Soto Parish, Louisiana, became their permanent home [2][26][27].
Jonah Bedford was born on May 7, 1901, in Texas [2][28]. Jack Mayfield, now remarried, also came to the Logansport neighborhood [11]. The two families stayed close: Jesse’s daughters Ada and Cordie both married Mayfields [2][33].
It was a place made for a man who did not want to be found. Near the southeast corner of Panola County, the Sabine River becomes the Texas–Louisiana line [14]. North of that point, around the family’s neighborhood, the boundary runs across dry land. A family could move from one state to the other without crossing a river [14]. Earlier in the century, much of western Louisiana had been the “Neutral Strip,” a no man’s land claimed by neither Spain nor the United States and known as a refuge for people outside the law. Folklorists still count Logansport as that region’s northern edge [15][16].
Frances Freeman explains that for much of his life after Tennessee, Jesse thought of himself as “hiding out” from federal law enforcement [2]. He was not the only one. Many people in those communities had left troubles behind and had no wish to meet them again, and few were eager to give their names to a federal census taker. The neighborhood was, in Frances’s words, a kind of “no man’s land,” and its records were never very complete [2].
The Nunleys made their living as sharecroppers. They lived at different times in the communities of Deadwood, Logan, and Galloway, moving short distances between rented farms, sometimes across the state line [2]. In April 1910 the census found them on a rented farm in Ward 8 of De Soto Parish, on the Louisiana side. Jesse, fifty-six, was running the farm, and William, Charlie, and Luther worked it with him. Their youngest, Britt Annie, born in February 1909, was the first of their children born in Louisiana. Jim, now married to Carrie and with a little daughter of his own, was farming the place next door [27].
The small schools of the border communities taught the younger children, and Logansport, just across the line in Louisiana, had the nearest larger school. It was also where the family went for the services and supplies of town [2]. The family remembers that Jesse eventually acquired land of his own [2].
The family grew in the border country [2][27][28]:
- Jonah Bedford (1901)
- a daughter, Mary, who died the day she was born in 1902
- Johnny, born about 1904
- Britt Annie, called “Shug” (February 15, 1909)
- Minnie Ola (about 1911)
Little Johnny died in 1909, at about five years old [2].
When the United States entered the First World War, three of Jesse’s sons registered for the draft on the same day, June 5, 1917. William and Charlie signed up at Logansport, each a married farmer with children of his own. Luther, who gave a Logansport address, was working for a Panola County farmer and registered on the Texas side, at Carthage [30]. The family’s lives ran across the state line as easily as the line ran across the fields.
Children and Sorrows
Jesse and Laura raised a large family:
| Child | Born | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Lucy Ann | mid-1880s, Tennessee | |
| James Lafayette (“Jim”) | February 1886, Tennessee | Married Carrie; died 1966, De Soto Parish [17][26][29] |
| Ada Ann | January 28, 1888, Tennessee | Married Lawson L. Mayfield; died November 9, 1970, Carthage, Texas; buried in Scott Cemetery, Panola County [32][33] |
| William Henry (“W. H.”) | April 19, 1889, Warren County, Tennessee | Married Myra (Myrie) Lee; died December 5, 1985; buried at Logan, Panola County [29][30][36][37] |
| Charles Haley | July 10, 1891, Bailey, Texas | Married Etta; died March 2, 1920, Logansport [17][29][30][31] |
| Luther H. | November 26, 1894, Texas | Married Nellie May Hawthorne; died August 3, 1975, Logansport [17][29][34][36][37] |
| Cordie Ann | January 14, 1898, Texas | Married a Mayfield; died February 28, 1923 [2][26] |
| Jonah Bedford | May 7, 1901, Texas | [2][28] |
| Mary | 1902 | Died the day she was born [2] |
| Johnny | about 1904 | Died 1909 [2] |
| Britt Annie (“Shug”) | February 15, 1909, Louisiana | Married Larnell Lee “L. L.” Freeman; died 2005 [2][27][28] |
| Minnie Ola | about 1911, Louisiana | Married into the Philips family [2][28] |
By January 1920 the older sons had households of their own, all within a few miles of their parents. William lived a short way down the road from Jesse and Laura in Ward 8. Jim and Luther lived a few doors apart on the Panola County side, and Charlie lived in Logansport [29]. Jesse, sixty-six, and Laura were still farming rented land in Ward 8, with Jonah, Britt Annie, and Minnie Ola at home [28].
The years that followed were hard ones. In November 1919, Luther and Nellie had lost their first-born namesake, a baby boy named Luther, at twenty-three days old. He was buried at Cool Springs, Louisiana [34]. Charlie died in Logansport on March 2, 1920, at the age of twenty-eight, only weeks after the census taker had visited his home, leaving Etta with two little girls [17][29][31]. Two years later, on March 26, 1922, Laura died. She was buried on March 28 in Mount Olivet Cemetery at Stanley, De Soto Parish [1][2][17]. Less than a year after that, in February 1923, their daughter Cordie Ann died at twenty-five [2].
After Laura’s death, the youngest girls took over the household. Britt Annie, just thirteen, and Minnie Ola, eleven, cooked and kept house for their father until they married [2].
The Last Journey
In 1926 Britt Annie married Larnell Lee Freeman [2]. Their son Billy Rae Freeman was born on May 8, 1929, according to the family Bible [2].
That spring brought news from Tennessee. Jesse’s brother Norman, who had stayed in Warren County all his life, died at McMinnville on June 14, 1929 [25].
That summer Jesse set out to see his new grandson. Family members remember that he was killed in an accident on the way [2].
Jesse Claiborne Nunley died on August 10, 1929, at seventy-six [1][18]. The Logansport Funeral Home cared for him [38], and he was buried beside Laura in Mount Olivet Cemetery at Stanley [1][2]. Their shared stone reads simply:
NUNLEY Jess C. July 4, 1853 – Aug. 10, 1929 Laura Ann Jan. 1861 – Mar. 26, 1922
Britt Annie’s next son was named J. C. Freeman in his grandfather’s honor [2]. She and L. L. raised six sons. One of them, Charles Cleveland Freeman, born at Joaquin in 1938, married Frances Freeman, who has gathered this history [19].
The Fourth of July Reunions
Jesse’s children never let his birthday pass unnoticed. Year after year, the family gathered around the Fourth of July [2].
In July 1964 the Panola Watchman’s Logan News column reported that “the Nunley reunion was held Saturday at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Luther Nunley” [3]. The guest list read like the family tree:
- Jesse’s sons W. H., Jim, and Jonah;
- his daughters Ada Mayfield and Minnie Philips;
- Ada’s son Norman “Sonny” Mayfield;
- Britt Annie and L. L. Freeman, with their sons Charles and Billy and their families;
- grandsons Dane Nunley and the Reverend Don Nunley;
- dozens of other children, in-laws, and cousins [2][3].
In 1980, about 150 people attended the Nunley reunion at the Galloway Community Center “on the 4th” [4]. In 1985, the Galloway columnist noted that the Nunley reunion was “set for July 4.” Afterward a neighbor reported that the community center “was covered with the Nunley reunion” [20][21]. The gatherings continued until the COVID-19 pandemic brought them to an end [2].
Legacy
Jesse Nunley’s life ran from a small farm near McMinnville to the black soil of Fannin County and then to the piney woods of the Sabine. He grew up one of a dozen children, buried his mother and his youngest sister in Texas, and raised a dozen children of his own, most of them in the border country. He was a man who preferred to stay out of sight of the law, yet he left a family that gathered for well over half a century to honor his birthday. Laura’s singing carried on in her children and grandchildren, in church and at family gatherings, and in the ministry of grandsons who became preachers [2][36]. The Fourth of July, his birthday, remained the family’s day.
Acknowledgments: The Nunley Family Historians
This biography stands on the work of the family’s own historians. The Mayfields have been the most faithful and gifted of them all.
Edna Mayfield Oates and her daughter, Sue, gave years to documenting the family. They traveled to Tennessee, where they worked with Jennie Mayfield and Mrs. W. W. Wilson. Later, with Doris Dickason, who compiled their research, they published Mayfield Kin, 1804–1980. The book holds 173 pages of family records and a reference section, and a public copy is kept at the library in Carthage, Texas [2][42].
Where Edna and Sue left off, Norman “Sonny” Mayfield, Ada Nunley Mayfield’s son, took up the work. Sonny has kept the family records up to date and kept addresses and contact information for a large family spread across the country. He took to computers and the internet early and used them to keep the family connected and informed. The Nunleys gathered every Fourth of July until the COVID epidemic, and Sonny was always there to share the family’s history [2].
The reunions came to an end as most of Jesse’s grandchildren passed away. Today only four of Jesse Nunley’s grandchildren are still living, all of them in their eighties [2]. This account of their grandfather’s life is offered in gratitude to them and to the family historians who kept his story.
References
- Tombstone of Jess C. Nunley and Laura Ann Nunley, Mount Olivet Cemetery, Stanley, De Soto Parish, Louisiana. Photograph supplied by Frances Freeman.
- Frances Freeman, family recollections and corrections, recorded in Perplexity research conversations, November 10, 2026. Includes the family account of the Tennessee shooting, the move to Texas, the sale of Jesse’s Tennessee land by relatives, the earlier move of Fannie and the Mayfields to Texas, the train journey to Logansport and the planned return to Tennessee, his identification as the “Black Jesse” of the Revenue Arrests clipping, the border-country years, the children, the schools, the family Bible date for Billy Rae Freeman, and the reunion tradition. See the companion research record and the Jesse-Nunley-Search-Mode-Research-Archive-2026-11-10.md file.
- “Logan News,” Mrs. C. C. Holiday, correspondent. The Panola Watchman (Carthage, Tex.), Vol. 91, No. 33, July 16, 1964, p. 6. The Portal to Texas History: https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth901137/m1/20/
- “Galloway News Roundup,” Mrs. J. W. Baker. The Panola Watchman, Vol. 108, No. 3, July 10, 1980, p. A7: https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1517902/m1/7/
- FamilySearch Family Tree, “Jesse C Nunley (1852–1929),” K2TP-82Z: https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/K2TP-82Z/jesse-c-nunley-1852-1929
- Marriage bond and return, Jesse Nunnelly and Laura A. Hobbs, Warren County, Tennessee, bond dated January 28, 1884; solemnized February 5, 1884, by J. H. Biles, J.P.; A. J. Mayfield, bondsman. Image supplied by Frances Freeman.
- Louisiana Death Records Index, Louisiana State Archives, entries for “Nunnally, J C” (1929) and “Nunley, Laura Ann Hobbs” (1922): https://vitalrecords.sos.la.gov/Deaths/DataView.aspx
- FamilySearch, “Nunley Name Meaning”: https://www.familysearch.org/en/surname?surname=nunley
- Warwickshire Historic Environment Record, MWA2609, “Medieval Priory at Wroxall”: https://timetrail.warwickshire.gov.uk/detail.aspx?monuid=WA2609
- Warren County, Tennessee, marriage records transcription, Grundy County History: https://grundycountyhistory.squarespace.com/s/MarriageRecordsWarrenCoTN.pdf
- Mount Carmel Cemetery, Hunt County, Texas, compilation: http://www.cemeteries-of-tx.com/etx/hunt/cemetery/mtcarmel.htm
- FamilySearch Family Tree, “Charles Haley Nunley (1891–1920),” LB77-455: https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/LB77-455/charles-haley-nunley-1891-1920
- Find a Grave, memorial for Frances Nunley: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/8929407/frances-nunley
- Texas State Historical Association, Handbook of Texas, “Sabine River”: https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/sabine-river
- 64 Parishes, “Neutral Strip”: https://64parishes.org/entry/neutral-strip
- Louisiana Folklife Program, “Western Louisiana’s Neutral Strip: Its History, People, and Legends”: https://www.louisianafolklife.org/LT/Articles_Essays/nslejeune1.html
- Louisiana Death Records Index, Louisiana State Archives, entries for Charles Nunley (1920), Laura Ann Hobbs Nunley (1922), James Lafiette Nunley (1966), and Luther H. Nunley (1975): https://vitalrecords.sos.la.gov/Deaths/DataView.aspx
- “J C Nunnaly,” died August 10, 1929, De Soto Parish, age 76 years, 1 month, 6 days, certificate no. 10094. “Louisiana, Deaths, 1850–1875, 1894–1960,” FamilySearch (index): https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:F33Y-6ZG; also Louisiana Death Records Index, Vol. 24, p. 10094: https://vitalrecords.sos.la.gov/Deaths/DataView.aspx
- Freeman family biographical research, Frances Freeman (Charles Cleveland Freeman, son of L. L. and Britt Anne “Shug” Nunley Freeman).
- “Galloway News,” Clois Baker. The Panola Watchman, Vol. 112, No. 41, April 10, 1985, p. 4C: https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1430514/m1/24/
- “Galloway News,” Clois Baker. The Panola Watchman, Vol. 113, No. 4, July 24, 1985, p. 11B: https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1422319/m1/19/
- 1850 U.S. census, Warren County, Tennessee, 6th Civil District, p. 51, dwelling and family 671, Greenberry Nunley household. FamilySearch: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HT-D4G4-ZN8
- 1860 U.S. census, Warren County, Tennessee, post office McMinnville, p. 153 [stamped 483], dwelling and family 1124, Green Nunly household, enumerated August 16, 1860. FamilySearch: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GBSD-D5G
- 1880 U.S. census, Warren County, Tennessee, Civil District 7, dwellings 113–123, Fannie Nunley household (indexed by FamilySearch under Grainger County). FamilySearch: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GYBL-1R8
- Tennessee death certificate no. 16483, Norman Nunley, died June 14, 1929, McMinnville, Warren County; father Greenberry Nunley, mother Fannie Stone. FamilySearch: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HT-DRVQ-8PQ
- 1900 U.S. census, Fannin County, Texas, Justice Precinct 3, ED 66, sheet 17B, household 316, Jess C. Nunley (indexed “Munely”), enumerated June 12, 1900. FamilySearch: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HT-XCMC-CFB
- 1910 U.S. census, De Soto Parish, Louisiana, Ward 8, ED 77, sheets 13A–13B, dwelling 254, J. C. Nunley (indexed “Vunley”), enumerated April 28, 1910. FamilySearch: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GRJ8-H7Y and https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GRJ8-4BQ
- 1920 U.S. census, De Soto Parish, Louisiana, Ward 8, ED 118, sheet 9A, dwelling 183, Jessie C. Nunley (indexed “Nanley”). FamilySearch: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9RXZ-7
- 1920 U.S. census households of Jesse’s sons. Jim, Panola Co., Tex., ED 163, sheet 8A: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GRN6-QPP; Luther, ED 163, sheet 8B: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9RN6-QP7; Willie H., De Soto Par., Ward 8, ED 118, sheet 8A: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GRXC-6H6; Charles H., Logansport, ED 141, sheet 1B: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9RXC-6PF
- World War I draft registration cards, June 5, 1917, “United States, World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917–1918,” FamilySearch. William H. Nunley: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GYYN-39WH; Charlie Nunley: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9YYN-3M43; Luther Nunley: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9YYB-9X69
- Charlie Nunley, died March 2, 1920, Logansport; father J C Nunley, mother Laura Hobbs; certificate no. 2660. “Louisiana, Deaths, 1850–1875, 1894–1960,” FamilySearch (index): https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:F33K-L83
- Texas death certificate, Ada Ann Mayfield, died November 9, 1970, Carthage, Panola County, file no. 3033; father Jess Nunley, mother Laura Hobbs. FamilySearch: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GY14-FS1Y
- 1930 U.S. census, Panola County, Texas, Precinct 6, sheet 10B, Lawson L. Mayfield household. FamilySearch: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9RZF-W3D
- Texas death certificate, infant Luther Nunley, died November 23, 1919, Panola County, no. 33279; parents Luther Nunley and Nellie May Hawthorne. FamilySearch: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GY1V-Q1PJ
- Find a Grave index, Frances Stoner Nunley, October 10, 1818 – January 12, 1893, Wolfe City, Hunt County, Texas. FamilySearch: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVVH-QJDV
- Obituaries of Jesse’s grandchildren naming their parents: Don Nunley https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/name/don-nunley-obituary?id=57303746; Chesley O. Nunley https://www.swarkansasnews.com/2016/01/chesley-o-nunley-age-92-of-nashville-arkansas-passed-away-sunday-january-3-2016; C. R. Nunley https://scttx.com/obituaries/obituaries-2008-march; Rev. Darrell Nunley https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/houston-tx/darrell-nunley-6868506; Almeda Holmes https://www.rose-neath.com/obituaries/almeda-holmes
- Social Security Death Index and Find a Grave indexes for Luther and William Nunley, FamilySearch: https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:JRTL-J4Z; https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:V9XF-54C; https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVVK-X729; https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVKM-JDVX
- “Burials by Logansport Funeral Home, 1926–1961,” TXGenWeb, Panola County: https://www.txgenwebcounties.org/panola/cemeteries/logansportfh.htm
- 1870 U.S. census, Warren County, Tennessee, Civil District 7, p. 15, family 100, Greenbury Nunnelly household (indexed “Kunnelly”). FamilySearch: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-6WSY-V1
- “Revenue Arrests,” unidentified McMinnville, Tennessee, newspaper (probably the Southern Standard), undated (about 1878–1882). Photocopy made at a McMinnville library; family collection of Frances Freeman.
- Dora Dickason, comp., Mayfield Kin, 1804–1980 (n.p., 1980?), 173, 15 p. (compiled from the research of Edna Mayfield Oates and Sue Oates). Public copy at the library in Carthage, Texas. FamilySearch Books catalog entry (restricted access): https://www.familysearch.org/library/books/records/?search=%22NUNLEY+FAMILY%22&fulltext=1
- Tennessee v. Davis, 100 U.S. 257 (1880): https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/100/257; report of Davis’s murder near McMinnville, March 21, 1882 (abstract): https://www.tngenweb.org/blount/newspr/abstracts//news7.txt
Revision History
Version 2: November 10, 2026, 2:55 PM CST. Version 1 was saved earlier the same day. Version 2 adds Jesse’s childhood and young manhood in Warren County from the 1850, 1860, and 1880 censuses; the family’s years in Fannin County, Texas; the 1910 and 1920 households in the border country; his sons’ draft cards; and new details on his children. It corrects the account of his brothers and sisters. Update, 3:00 PM CST: added the 1870 census household, which shows Jesse at sixteen at home with both parents. Update, 3:09 PM CST: added the “Revenue Arrests” clipping, copied at the McMinnville library, to “The Shoot-out and the Road West.” Update, 3:11 PM CST: at Frances Freeman’s direction, the arrest is identified as Jesse Claiborne’s (“Black Jesse”). Added that he left soon after the shooting and that relatives sold his Tennessee land. Update, 3:21 PM CST: at Frances Freeman’s direction, Fannie and the Mayfields now go to Texas first, and the family story of the train to Logansport and the planned return to Tennessee is added.
Final edition, November 10, 2026, 3:27 PM CST: draft markings removed, photographs restored from the Nunley Family project files, and the Revenue Arrests clipping, the 1910 census page, and the 1964 reunion report added as illustrations.
Update, November 10, 2026, 4:05 PM CST: added “Acknowledgments: The Nunley Family Historians” at Frances Freeman’s direction, honoring Edna Mayfield Oates, Sue Oates, Jennie Mayfield, Mrs. W. W. Wilson, Doris Dickason, and Norman “Sonny” Mayfield, and added reference 42 (Mayfield Kin, 1804–1980).
